2008 Sawtooth Poetry Prize Winners
Ahsahta Press is delighted to announce the winner of its seventh annual Sawtooth Poetry Prize competition: Barbara Maloutas of Los Angeles, California, whose manuscript the whole Marie was selected by C.D. Wright. She will receive the $1,500 prize in addition to the publication of her book by Ahsahta Press in January 2009.
Wright, whose most recent book, Rising, Falling, Hovering, was published by Copper Canyon Press, selected the manuscript from 740 entrants, 42 of which were named semifinalists. Of that group, 13 were named finalists for the prize. [List follows.]
Maloutas is the author of In a Combination of Practices (New Issues 2004) and a chapbook, Practices (New Michigan/Diagram 2003). Her work has appeared in Aufgabe, FreeVerse, Segue, Tarpaulin Sky, The New Review of Literature, Good Foot, bird dog, dusie, Greatcoat and elsewhere. Her work is anthologized in Intersections: Innovative Poets of Southern California (Green Integer) and Segue’s Fifth Anniversary Issue. Online chapbooks are available from Segue (Aegean.doc) and Beard of Bees (Coffee Hazilly). She teaches in the book arts program at Otis College of Art and Design and lives in Los Angeles.
In addition to Maloutas’ manuscript, Ahsahta Press will publish two runner-up manuscripts, a beautiful name for a girl by Kirsten Kaschock of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Dick of the Dead by Rachel Loden of Palo Alto, California.
Ahsahta Press, named for the Mandan word for “Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep,” was founded in 1974 and publishes six books of poetry per year, one of which is the winner of its annual contest. The 2008 contest, which runs from January 1 to March 1, will be judged by MacArthur-award-winning poet Rae Armantrout, author of Next Life, Up to Speed, and Veil: New and Selected Poems, all from Wesleyan University Press.
Ahsahta Press is based at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, and is directed by Janet Holmes, who also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Boise State.
See guidelines for next year's contest
Finalists for the 2007 Sawtooth Poetry Prize:
James Belflower, Commuter
Julie Carr, Of Sarah—A Fragment
Adam Clay, A Hotel Room at the Edge of the World
Cody-Rose Clevidence, :proof
Christopher DeWeese, The Confessions
Lucas Farrell, Generations of Bird
Richard Greenfield, Tracer*
Kirsten Kaschock, a beautiful name or a girl (runner-up)
Rachel Loden, Dick of the Dead (runner-up)
Barbara Maloutas, the whole Marie (winner)
Zach Savich, Megachurch
Rob Schlegel, Wrack Lines
Allison Titus, Barter, Fasten
Semifinalists for 2007 Sawtooth Poetry Prize:
Erica Anzalone, Samsara
J. Mae Barizo, Traum
Hadara Bar-Nadav, Architecture at the Mouth
Geri Lynn Baumblatt, Atlas of a Cul-de-sac
Allison Benis, Four Studies of a Baby’s Head
Chad Bennett, I Am Odious (As It Turns Out). I Am Monstrous Glad
Ann E. Buechner, School for Girls
Anya L. Cobler, Prow of Shells
Lisken Van Pelt Dus, S/he
Rebecca Gopoian, Two
Stephanie Heit, Quiet Anatomy
Jacqueline Lalley, Marvelsnatcher
Mark Lamoureux, Sometimes Things Seem Very Dark
Dawn Lonsinger, fatal light awareness
Chloë Joan López, Quelled Communiqués
Christopher Mattison, not Omaha
Karyna McGlynn, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl*
Amy McNamara, the new head chronometrist
Nick Moudry, Decoy
Benjamin Paloff, The Politics
Emily Pérez, The Thief Downstairs
David Rizzi, 39 boys on ground
Brenda Sieczkowski, Souvenir Palace
Jason Stumpf, A Cloud of Witnesses
Mathias Svalina, Creation Myths
Maureen Thorson, Applies to Oranges
Sara Veglahn, The Called-Back Wreck of Things
A.E. Watkins, Exhibit Kansas
Arianne Zwartjes, The Surfacing of Excess
*manuscripts withdrawn from judging due to publication elsewhere
Thank you to all who entered.